Unusual morning beverages

Whereas breakfast was once purely the domain of coffee, tea, milk, and juice, the first meal of the day now includes some less traditional beverages. Whether you need a boost of caffeine or a drink that replaces a meal, there are a number of choices to meet even the strangest palate.
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Kellogg’s website

Kellogg’s Breakfast To Go

This new product from Kellogg’s targets people who don’t have enough time to make and eat a bowl of cereal. These breakfast shakes, which come in vanilla, strawberry, and milk chocolate, have 10 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber. Pushed as a breakfast replacement each Breakfast To Go has around 200 calories and 18 grams of sugar.
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Starbucks

Starbucks Refreshers

Starbucks continues to search for ways to serve coffee to people who don’t like coffee. The Refresher is a drink made from green coffee extract, which is coffee beans before they are roasted. They come in fruit flavors and, though they have caffeine, they taste nothing like coffee.
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Reed Saxon/Associated Press

Mountain Dew Kickstart

Another breakfast drink for the energy drink crowd, Kickstart has Mountain Dew flavor but is made with 5 percent juice and Vitamins B and C, along with an extra jolt of caffeine. The folks at Mountain Dew created Kickstart because they want to serve an audience that does not consume traditional breakfast drinks like coffee or tea. PepsiCo told the Associated Press it doesn’t consider Kickstart to be an energy drink, noting that it still has far less caffeine than drinks like Monster and Red Bull.
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Bovril website

Bovril

Bovril began when Napoleon ordered a million cans of beef for his army. Instead, John Lawson Johnston invented “Johnston’s Fluid Beef,” which was renamed Bovril in 1886. Not strictly a breakfast drink, Bovril is essentially a beef-flavored tea-style drink that you make like instant coffee. The label for Bovril describes it as “the original beef extract” and, we’re doubting anyone will argue with that.
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Nestle website

Carnation Breakfast Essentials

A classic, Carnation Breakfast Essentials (known for years as Carnation Instant Breakfast) first went into national distribution in 1965. Marketed as a meal replacement, the product was successful from its launch. It still exists, though the Carnation Company was acquired by Nestle in 1985.
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Clamato website

Clamato

The website for Clamato describes the drink as “an original and savory tomato cocktail juice seasoned with a unique blend of spices.” The name, however, is supposed to be evocative of clam and tomato. And, while, there is no actual clam in the beverage, the taste at least suggests that the name makes sense. The Clamato website also claims the beverage is “the main ingredient in Canada’s number one cocktail, the Bloody Caesar.”
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Krispy Kreme France website

Krispy Kreme Frozen Original Kreme

In 2004, Krispy Kreme, the doughnut chain that failed miserably in New England, was experiencing a downturn in sales as low-carb diets were all the rage. To combat this trend, the company introduced the “Frozen Original Kreme,” a line of beverages that was promoted as “drinking a donut.” Of course, the drinks were actually worse for you than having a doughnut, and the line did not catch on. Though Krispy Kreme sells milkshakes and a line of beverages it calls “Chillers,” there is no mention of the “Frozen Original Kreme on it English-language website, though, the drinks are still promoted on the company’s French site.
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Monster energy drink website

Java Monster

Monster, famous for its giant cans of energy drink, has a line of coffee-based beverages which includes Kona Blend, Vanilla Light, Irish Blend, Mean Bean and Toffee. Not just a can of coffee, Monster adds its “Monster energy blend” to Java Monster. They describe the Mean Bean flavor on their website as “premium coffee and cream, supercharged with our Monster energy-blend. It’s “coffee done the Monster way, wide open, with a take no prisoners attitude.”
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Slim Fast

Slim Fast

This product has always been advertised as part of a diet plan where you drink a shake for breakfast, then another for lunch, followed by a “sensible dinner.” There is no difference between the breakfast shake and the lunch shake, but either technically works as a meal substitute.
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